Sunday marked the beginning of Eid, where people of the Muslim faith break their fast and celebrate the close of Ramadan. On the lawn outside the San Diego Convention Center, local activist organizations also marked Land Day — a symbol of resistance and land rights for the Palestinian people.

“It’s also a time of mourning, it’s also a time of where people should stand up and get together,” said Aisha Noor with the San Diego Grassroots for Palestine.

On March 30, 1976, the Israeli government moved to seize roughly 21,000 acres of Palestinian land. Israeli forces killed six Palestinians in response to protests. Now in 2025, a delicate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has been upended.

“What it comes down to is no child should be killed. It doesn’t matter if it’s in Palestine, in Congo, here in the United States,” said Noor.

Since October 7, 2023, the Palestinian Health Ministry said more than 50,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including more than 15,600 children. That’s why organizers like Noor said they want to make sure the conflict happening in the Middle East isn’t falling on deaf ears in San Diego.

Rallygoers marched through the streets of downtown and headed toward Seaport Village, voicing their support for Palestine.

“I have seen a lot of changes, people are afraid to speak up,” said Noor. “A lot of people are staying home now. They’re not getting involved as much.”

The United Nations said nearly all of Gaza’s population — more than two million people — has been displaced from their homes since the war with Israel began.

It has been two years since San Diego’s camping ban went into effect.

We wanted to know how it’s going.

A lot of attention on parks: Our Lisa Halverstadt crunched the data and discovered that city parks, especially Balboa Park, have seen the most enforcement. Her analysis shows that two-thirds of the 260 camping ban citations and arrests happened in city park and 40 percent were in Balboa Park.

Refresher: The city of San Diego’s camping law bans camping when shelter is available and at all times, regardless of shelter availability, near sensitive areas such as schools and transit hubs. Since the city approved the ban, other cities across the city have followed suit.

Halverstadt found that while Balboa Park stakeholders say they still face challenges with the homeless population at the park, they have seen an improvement. Meanwhile, service providers continue to raise concerns about the law simply pushing people to hard-to-reach and dangerous spaces to avoid law enforcement.

You can read the full story here.

What do you want to know about the camping ban? Send me a note at andrea.lopez@voiceofsandiego.org.

Scoop: Hospital Borrowing Blues

This week, our Tigist Layne got her hands on a big scoop.

She was the first to report that Sharp HealthCare threatened to sue Palomar Health, a public health care system, for allegedly breaching an exclusivity arrangement the two systems established in 2024.

Let me back up: As we’ve reported, Palomar Health is struggling financially. (Sidenote: Palomar Health fought our reporting for a while, but now openly admit they have “declining financial circumstances.”)

Last year, Palomar Health got a $25 million from Sharp HealthCare. They also entered into an agreement to collaborate.

Here’s how they described it at the time in a press release: “Sharp will expand its network into North County, including primary care and medical specialties as appropriate for the communities. Palomar’s patients will also have access to Sharp’s specialized and higher-acuity services not currently available at Palomar Health, including transplants, advanced oncology procedures and more.” 

Borrowing beef: As the Union-Tribune reported earlier this month, UC San Diego also loaned Palomar Health $20 million. That rubbed Sharp HealthCare the wrong way.

Layne reports that Sharp officials sent a letter to Palomar’s CEO concerning the loan agreement and exclusivity arrangement Sharp and Palomar entered into last year. Now, Sharp HealthCare wants their money back, plus interest.

Palomar Health officials denied Sharp’s allegations. They sent us a copy of their response.

We’ll keep watching: What does this all mean for Palomar Health? Will the health care systems work it out? How could this impact patients? If you have questions or tips, reach out to Tigist.layne@voiceofsandiego.org.

Read the full story here.

Women Leading the Conversation

Thank you to all our members and guests who joined us last week for a conversation with some of San Diego’s most influential women leaders. So many of you are Cup of Chisme readers and I love it!

Our speakers included U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs, San Diego Symphony CEO Martha Gilmer and Ebony Shelton, chief administrative officer at the county of San Diego. We had a fascinating discussion about their challenges as leaders and goals for the institutions they lead.

Here’s our event photo gallery. Hope to see you at our next event!

More Chisme to Start Your Week

• Lisa Halverstadt revealed this week that the city of San Diego is on the hook for monthly payments of $77,000 for a shuttered homeless shelter.
• For this month’s Progress Report, Jakob McWhinney profiles the Santee School District. It is one of 100 school district across the nation performing better than before the pandemic. Read the story here.

The county Sheriff’s Office on Saturday identified two San Diego Police Department officers who used their weapons in connection with the shooting death of a man who allegedly threatened several people with a gun earlier this week in Miramar Ranch North.

According to a Sheriff’s Office news release, the officers who discharged their weapons are Brandon Jordan and Chris Lingenhol.

Jordan has served in the department for 17 years, and is assigned to Central Division Patrol and is a SWAT sniper, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Lingenhol, an SDPD officer for 10 years, is assigned to patrol at the Mid City Division and is a SWAT sniper.

Around noon Tuesday, the 59-year-old suspect pointed a handgun at construction workers and then a pest control employee in the 11600 block Angelique Street, at Cypress Canyon Road east of Interstate 15 and south of Scripps Poway Parkway, authorities said.

The worker then locked himself inside his vehicle for safety reasons, according to the SDPD.

Police sent a SWAT team to the neighborhood near Miramar Reservoir and shut down traffic lanes in the immediate area while working up plans to get the suspect into custody.

The suspect was ordered to drop the weapon, which appeared to be a semi-automatic pistol, but he failed to comply, prompting officers to establish a containment perimeter to prevent the suspect from threatening other people.

SWAT officers attempted to approach the pest control employee, but the suspect allegedly brandished the handgun in their direction, resulting him being fired upon.

“The suspect suffered trauma to his upper body, and unfortunately, he succumbed to his injuries,” according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, which investigates shootings by SDPD officers to avoid conflicts of interest.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, the suspect has been identified but authorities are withholding his name pending notification of his next of kin. Members of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office Homicide Unit arrived at the scene to conduct an independent investigation into the shooting.

It was unclear what motivated the assault with a deadly weapon against the pest control employee or construction workers.

No officers were injured.

On Saturday, the Sheriff’s Office stated, “The motivation and circumstances of the shooting are still under investigation.”

“Detectives are currently reviewing evidence, interviewing witnesses and examining the circumstances surrounding the shooting,” sheriff’s officials said.

The county District Attorney’s Office will review the Sheriff’s Office investigation “to determine if the officers bear any criminal liability for their actions,” officials said.

The Sheriff’s Office added that SDPD will conduct an administrative investigation into the officers’ discharge of their firearms.

Anyone with information regarding the shooting was urged to call the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office Homicide Unit at 858-868-3200. Tipsters who prefer to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.